Editing to summarize (I'm not a big forum guy and just realized how little sense this all makes):

For one week, 28 Wisconsin restaurants are going to "ask" you for a dollar if you want the glass of water they typically bring you at the start of a meal. Not bottled water, just the regular tap water. The money will go to the Clean Water Alliance and is intended to raise awareness of the clean water crisis (I tried my best, but this is obviously not impartial).

Water shortages seem to be a regional problem, ie if you don't live near lots of potable water, it could be an issue.

Everything about this makes me want to sucker punch a college kid....

Graze's co-owner and executive chef, Tory Miller, said his servers now bring a carafe of water to tables instead of filling each glass.

Thank you for saving the planet Tory. Maybe you could package up the unmelted ice from each table and send it to Africa.

It gets better, they then for some reason link the entire thing to health...

Besides wasting water, not drinking a glass with dinner leads to unhealthy people, said Marianne Merrick, a registered dietitian at St. Mary's.

Having to ask for a glass could lead to fewer people drinking water, but they should make up for it at home, she said.

Resident Shithead Marianne Merrick makes it clear that ordering a $1 glass of tap water (for charity) is not only good for the environment, but good for you! But if you're too poor to afford water when you're out to eat, you can always drink it at home where it's free.....except....

"We're not telling people, 'Don't drink water,' we're just telling them to be aware that the water that's coming to your table is not free and any water being left on the table is just being tossed away," Tye said.

...or poured down a drain...back to where it came.

Things like this give environmentalism a bad name and makes me want to go take a big shit in the Yahara Bay (if I was't afraid of the bodies that will pop up in the thaw).

Miller is having his wait staff bring a carafe of water to the table, leaving diners to pour it for themselves. What's so bad about that? It's not like he's sending them all the way downstairs to drink out of the bubbler.

And your subject line is nearly as illiterate as the gun kill woman one.

Read as much of the wiki link as I could take. Sounds like I'm 100% correct, there is no potable water shortage in Wisconsin.

I can't figure out the angle here: are restaurants jumping on board because its a way to eventually charge for water? Fake enviromentalism for the sake of a not having to pour people water? Fake enviromentalism for the sake of coming off as enviromenatally friendly?

The point is you'll save about a couple bathtubs full of water in total between 28 restaurants over a week. So the real point (missed by Tory in the article as he/she actually seems to think its about the physical water left in the cups..)appears to be to raise money for a charity for a problem that doesn't exist.

Good old forced charity and a lesson in political correctness with free health advice from my waitress. And all I wanted to do was eat. Doesn't it just make you make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Princess Buttercup's manipulating, evil superbitch character* in House of Cards has made me suspicious of water-related charities. Rationally, I know that this has nothing to do with real-world water issues, of course.

On a visceral level, the $1 thing doesn't really sit well with me. I've seen some establishments, such as Graze, Greenbush, and Brasserie V provide smaller glasses with small carafes of water. I approve of that. My SO drinks lots of water, me not so much. I do not like to waste water, or anything else for that matter, so I'm very much in favor of efforts to satisfy customers in a manner that discourages waste.

We should reflect on how fortunate we are that a dollar is not considered to be a significant sacrifice. I've been to places where people would fight over a dollar.

I guess my problem with this is two fold. One, I hate being put into a position to look like a scumbag when declining a forced obligation for charity. Its like when you have a Target checkout person ask you if you'd like to donate a dollar; now I have to say "yes" so the person behind me in line doesn't think less of me. I prefer to donate money to causes I believe....wait, sorry, let's be honest, I don't really like to donate money to anything. Maybe this is because I've watched most every form of charity be abused or be a swindle in its own right, but not really that important in this context.Two, its a bullshit charity. There isn't a shortage of water, it's a problem with distribution. If there is one resource we could possibly take for granted in Wisconsin, it should be water. People caring about a half full/half empty glass of water is ridiculous or part of someone's personal neuroses. If you saved a half glass of water from every table in every restaurant in Wisconsin for a decade, it would make zero difference to a water crisis anywhere. From reading the article, at least from Tory's remarks, it seems to be more about being irritated about pouring water and picking up half empty glasses. Considering how much it costs to eat at these restaurants... Fuck that. It's political posturing, which turns me off more and more from any empathetic views I held in my youth. It's the equivalent of not swatting a fly, at some point we need to get real about things.

drinkinblackcoffee wrote:I guess my problem with this is two fold. One, I hate being put into a position to look like a scumbag when declining a forced obligation for charity. Its like when you have a Target checkout person ask you if you'd like to donate a dollar; now I have to say "yes" so the person behind me in line doesn't think less of me. I prefer to donate money to causes I believe....wait, sorry, let's be honest, I don't really like to donate money to anything. Maybe this is because I've watched most every form of charity be abused or be a swindle in its own right, but not really that important in this context.Two, its a bullshit charity. There isn't a shortage of water, it's a problem with distribution. If there is one resource we could possibly take for granted in Wisconsin, it should be water. People caring about a half full/half empty glass of water is ridiculous or part of someone's personal neuroses. If you saved a half glass of water from every table in every restaurant in Wisconsin for a decade, it would make zero difference to a water crisis anywhere. From reading the article, at least from Tory's remarks, it seems to be more about being irritated about pouring water and picking up half empty glasses. Considering how much it costs to eat at these restaurants... Fuck that. It's political posturing, which turns me off more and more from any empathetic views I held in my youth. It's the equivalent of not swatting a fly, at some point we need to get real about things.

Yes, let's get real about this. You're a jerk about charity in general and so you don't like this specific thing and have an emotional stake in discrediting a real-deal issue to make yourself feel like less of a, well, jerk.

If there is one resource we should take for granted in Wisconsin, it's people who bitch about anyone trying to do literally anything that makes them think about an issue. Water is finite and whiny bitchers are infinite, as a great man (me! right now!) once said.

In fact, http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ - WI is actually in a drought right now and a large part of the not-very-far-away country is a hell of a lot worse. It sure FEELS like you could find something more worthy of your ire than restaurants that you don't have to go do charging a dollar for water for a limited amount of time. I'm drinking coffee right now too though, maybe it's messing with my head.

drinkinblackcoffee wrote: Its like when you have a Target checkout person ask you if you'd like to donate a dollar; now I have to say "yes" so the person behind me in line doesn't think less of me.

You should do all your shopping online -- you clearly don't have a problem with how you come across to others on teh interwebs.

I don't care for the checkout guilt trip either, so I just smile and say "no thank you" and move on. You don't have to say yes, just say no politely, since the poor checkout clerk is just doing his/her job. I suspect they don't much care either way whether you donate or not.

[quote="rrnate]Yes, let's get real about this. You're a jerk about charity in general and so you don't like this specific thing and have an emotional stake in discrediting a real-deal issue to make yourself feel like less of a, well, jerk.

If there is one resource we should take for granted in Wisconsin, it's people who bitch about anyone trying to do literally anything that makes them think about an issue. Water is finite and whiny bitchers are infinite, as a great man (me! right now!) once said.[quote]

Its not about a dollar, its about principal. At least the dollar at Target goes to slightly possible legit charity. To put it into context: Say they wanted a dollar to revive ska music in America....99.999% could agree that this is a vile waste of a precious dollar.

Droughts are about rain...

I'm really not a prick... I mean I am, but I used to come from a good place. But BS charities and grandstanding about non-issues have caused me to go bitter with age.